Interesting thoughts/whine, but I think you've observed something not to do with the difference between computer games and role playing games per se, but the difference between computer games and other sorts of games in general. Bear with me if you will for an example:
We're discussing my interest in WWII in general and Flames of War in particular. I mention that I'm working on a battalion of Soviet Guards riflemen and we begin discussing various battles. The discussion turns to Kursk and you become even more excited. You determine that you can very quickly take up the miniaturist's hobby by building a company of Panther tanks, which made their debut at Kursk. You look forward to painting them and the prospect of using their awesome combat capabilities.
Over the next two months (we could have gotten together sooner but life intervened) you have purchased and painted your 15mm scale Panther tanks. They are lovingly detailed. You also purchased a couple rulebooks for the game. As we became delayed in our meeting, you also purchased a book on Kursk and an Osprey book on the Panther. You read Ernst Barkmann's memoirs because you're crazy like that. It has been two months of buildup and excitement.
We spend a while shooting the bull and setting up the table. We get a nice looking battlefield, dominated by a dilapidated Ukranian village (aren't they all). Maybe it's Syrtsevo or something. Anyway, it all looks sweet. The anticipation builds. We determine to fight a basic meeting engagement, where the advance elements of both of our forces encounter the other, and half of our troops start off board to show up as reserves, which will ramp up the excitement towards the end of the battle.
The forces are deployed. You have a platoon of Panthers plus your HQ Panthers, looking mighty on the field, as your other Panther platoon waits in reserve. I deploy two companies of unsophisticated-looking Soviet infantry, the monotony of which is only broken up by the occasional blue hat of a Commissar. "Hah," you think, "this dishevelled mob of unruly tractor jockeys will be dealt with swiftly." Kampfgruppe von Bullgrit is ready.
I go first and prepare to move toward the village. "Let me check for air support" I say. I roll and 2 Shturmoviks do indeed show up. You expected this, and know that you'll only have to weather one or maybe two turns of it before you're close enough to my own forces that additional sorties will be waived off. I position the air strike to go after a couple of Panthers from your first platoon.
After laboriously moving all my infantry, which you watch with almost unbearable anticipation at FINALLY getting to do something with your beautiful and deadly cats, I roll to range in with my planes. I do, and they unleash their anti-tank rockets. Amazingly, both hit. "Stupid Reds!" you curse as you roll your armor saves. You fail both. I roll my firepower checks, and pass both... your two Panthers, slick and mighty, explode like mini-Death Stars. Just eyeballing the odds I'd say we're well below 10% of that all happening. The Red Air Force were truly on their game.
But it gets worse. Your remaining Panther must take a morale test. He proceeds to blow it. "There are surely more planes where those came from... these Communists always have a million of everything!" he reasons as he orders his tank to reverse gears and get the heck out of Dodgeski. Incensed that, before even getting to do anything with these tanks that you've built, painted and read about over the course of two months, you attach the company command tank to the platoon to reroll and attempt to salvage the morale situation. Amazingly you blow this check as well. We may be below 1% odds at this point. But no matter... your commander has decided that this must be some sort of Bolshevik ambush and he doesn't feel like cooking today in his reputedly highly flammable wonder weapon.
And then it dawns on you. You no longer have any company commander and you have no forces on the field. You have lost the battle.
Silently, you begin packing away your beautiful miniatures. Noisily, I begin consuming the requisite vodka to attain the state of limberness necessary to properly execute the glorious Russian Bear Dance, hallmark of revolutionary celebration.
"Aw man!" I remark. "I never even got to use my flamethrowers. Those are so cool." Speechless, you stalk away into the night, another gloomy day on the Ostfront bringing despair to your German heart.
Now... compare this with a session of playing Combat Mission 2: Barbarossa to Berlin. In the computer game, which you can play by yourself, exactly the same situation can be set up. But the set up only takes a few minutes and you didn't have to assemble, paint or read anything (except for reading the manual, if necessary). And roughly the same result could have taken place: Shturmoviks could have shown up and hosed your Panthers right out of the gate. At which point you'd just quit the mission and re-run it, getting a different result. No depression required.
That's just because computer games (mostly) excel at not giving you a lasting and painful hose job. There's little investment involved, little time involved and almost no homework.
It's a risk/reward thing. Computer games give you a baseline experience which rarely is extremely good but is never extremely bad for very long because you can always restore a save, turn it off, redo the mission, etc. Hobby games take an investment of time, often money, even blood, sweat and tears. And when they're good, the payoff is worth it. But sometimes all you roll are 1s and the whole thing goes South. That's just the nature of the difference.
But if hobby games didn't have that variability, the payoffs would not be as good.
